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He, moved by your intercession, shall drive away calamitous war, and miserable famine, and the plague from the Roman people and their sovereign Caesar, to the Persians and the Britons. The man of upright life and pure from wickedness, O Fuscus, has no need of the Moorish javelins, or bow, or quiver loaded with poisoned darts.
"Hark! listen to the bold Fuscus," cried the crowd. "He has seen much." "I will never wear my sword again if they did not knock over the statue in the dark." "No, no," cried the sailor positively. "It fell with the land that was washed away; I saw it lying there myself." "And are you a Christian, too?" asked the soldier, "or do you suppose that I was in jest when I swore by my sword?
He paused here a moment; and grasping his fevered brow with his hand, recalled to mind the strange occurrences, most unexpected and unfortunate, which had befallen him, since he stood there that morning; each singly trivial; each, unconnected as it seemed with the rest, and of little moment; yet all, when united, forming a chain of circumstances by which he was now fettered hand and foot—his casual interview with Catiline on the hill; his subsequent encounter of Victor and Aristius Fuscus; the recognition of his dagger by the stout cutler Volero; the death of Varus in the hippodrome; his own victorious exercises on the plain; the invitation to the feast; the sumptuous banquet; and last, alas! and most fatal, the too voluptuous and seductive Lucia.
"Among you worshippers of beasts squabbles never cease, and as to the Christians, who have made their nests out there on the other side of the valley, say the worst you can of them and still you would be flattering them." "Brave Fuscus is quite right!" cried a beggar.
He commanded silence and made the soldier tell him what had so violently excited the people. "Very possibly," said the tribune, a sinewy and stern-looking man, who, like Fuscus, had served under Tinnius Rufus, and had risen from a sutler to be an officer, "Very possibly but where are your proofs?"
"To no one, Cicero. Marcus Aurelius Victor, and Aristius Fuscus were with me, when he recognized it for his work?" "No one else?" "No one, save our slaves, and they," he added in a breath, "could not have heard what passed." "Hath no one else seen it?" "As I was stripping for the contests on the Campus, Catiline saw it in my girdle, and admired its fabric." "Catiline!" "Ay! Consul?"
However, I must risk the experiment, and, as in an inveterate complaint, try every change of remedy. You see, it is not any pleasurable indulgence that prevents my attending you on the first day of your consulship. I shall celebrate it nevertheless, as much as if I were present, and pay my vows for you here, with all the warmest tokens of joy and congratulation. Farewell. To FUSCUS
May Plotius and Varius, Maecenas and Virgil, Valgius and Octavius approve these Satires, and the excellent Fuscus likewise; and I could wish that both the Visci would join in their commendations: ambition apart, I may mention you, O Pollio: you also, Messala, together with your brother; and at the same time, you, Bibulus and Servius; and along with these you, candid Furnius; many others whom, though men of learning and my friends, I purposely omit to whom I would wish these Satires, such as they are, may give satisfaction; and I should be chagrined, if they pleased in a degree below my expectation.
At length I grew fatigued with continual contemplation, and to relieve myself pulled out a pocket Horace, the legacy of my beloved Brightwel! I read with avidity the epistle in which he so beautifully describes to Fuscus, the grammarian, the pleasures of rural tranquillity and independence. By this time the sun rose from behind the eastern hills, and I opened my casement to contemplate it.
"No! that is not so odd, Fuscus, in these times. It was but two nights since, as I was coming home something later than my wont from Terentia’s, that I fell in with Clodius reeling along, frantically drunk and furious, with half a dozen torch-bearers before, and half a score wolfish looking gladiators all armed with blade and buckler, and all half-drunk, behind him.
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